'American Idol' has its first openly gay contestant in 2014

Of course it’s sad that this is a news headline, that it took this long, that this is reality. But hey, let’s be happy about it instead – someone had to break the ice! M.K. Nobilette, 20, is officially the first openly gay contestant on American Idol. It’s really just a crazy technicality: Gay contestants in the past had never spoken of their sexuality on camera, seemingly by the show’s design.

“I’m very obviously gay, and there are always gonna be people in America and everywhere else who will definitely hate me,” said Nobilette while waiting to hear her Hollywood Week fate before the judges. “But I think that in the last two years there have been a lot of things that have really changed that, and have made it a positive thing.”